The Orc King---An Apologia for Drizzt Do'Urden

[darkelf105]

Just got done reading a sample chapter for the new Drizzt novel. I have the sneaking suspicion that the Companions of the Hall are dead...Which, horrible as it is, makes me happy. Yesh, that's right, a new R.A. Salvatore novel is coming out....and I have it pre-ordered at Borders. I know, I know, but I <3 Drizzt. I can't help it. I've been having adventures with him since I was ten. He's been an almost constant companion in my life since my childhood, and he's almost like a friend, a whiny, emo STOIC friend, but a friend. That I love, and love to make fun of.  You'd make fun of him, too. He writes journal entries. Long ones. Like of the kind "Dear diary, I killed a spider  today. This makes me want to hide in the shadows and look deep into my conscience and wonder if it was right. I'm going to mope about it now. On a rock...and look at the stars, and wonder, and wait for sunrise, the wind blowing through my thick, white mane, and eventually, I will reach a conclusion. It was right to kill the spider, but I'm still going to cry about it. There is no sun in the Underdark. This all makes sense, really. kthnxbye." Okay, not quite like that. I have to admit, I quoted a Drizzt journal entry in an ethics paper. I know beyond a doubt that if I picked up the Drizzt books today, I probably wouldn't have been able to make it past the The Dark Elf Trilogy.  But I read them when I was young, when stories count more than the words and what your heart tells you about the book you are reading is more important than what your mind tells you. Now my mind would tell me to run, run screaming from this series because of the way it's written, but because my childhood self read the stories to me, Drizzt's tale rings true. I internalized and identified and hero worshipped Drizzt. Still do. If there was anyone I would choose to be like, with the possible exception of Ged from Earthsea, it would be Drizzt Do'Urden. Seriously.  Everyone loves a man with a panther in his pocket.  I love the character of Drizzt because he's extremely awkward (although I don't think RAS intended this) and because he's earnest and steadfast and brave and strong in way that has nothing to do with how kickass he is with his ::gasp the originality:: dual wielded swords.  He's the most cliche and Gary Stewish character I've ever read about, and yet not really, because there's some so indefinably Drizzt about his Gary Stewish-ness that it takes him above and beyond the sooper speshul of a cliche character into the realm of genuine personhood.  Really, if you read carefully, it's there. If you have ever read Ursula K. LeGuin's short story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", that's what Drizzt is all about. He's one of the people that have the courage to walk away. The strength of mind to realize that sometimes there is more than black and white, it's more complicated than we like to make it, and that sometimes, the bravest, most morally right thing you can do is walk away.  I love LeGuin's short story because it is so simple and so complex and the tale of morality it tells is different from the black and white world we want to inhabit. I'm scared of her story, too. I have  a horrible feeling that I wouldn't be one of the people who walked away. But Drizzt is. I know it because he did it. Read the Dark Elf Trilogy. On the surface, those stories seem to be your average, cookie cutter vanilla fantasy novels cut from D&D cloth. But there is more going on there than meets the eye. Drizzt's tale is one of quiet rebellion. He's a lot like my other fictional hero, Ged. And while RAS's prose never, ever reaches the height of elegance and literary beauty that LeGuin's Earthsea Cycle does, there is something that rings the same in both of them. It is the questioning of the status quo, the looking at the world in it's ugliness and not flinching. The strength of character and mind to be different. Plus Drizzt kicks ass in a way that only an American can love. But, for all the cowboy shenanigans and genocidal tendencies of the other characters, RAS TRIES really really hard to take his stories beyond a D&D campaign. He does. This next book really proves it. Drizzt always questions what is good and evil, right and wrong. And yes, as mentioned, because of his prose, RAS never reaches the truely complex morality a really great book arrives at, but  he still imbues Drizzt with a semblance of it. Which is more than can be said for other authors in this particular niche of the fantasy genre. There's a great short story that all cheese whoring, let's kill 'em dead because they're monsters D&D players should read. It's about Drizzt and a good goblin. It's in a short story anthology called Realms of Valor.  And trust me, the valorous one isn't really Drizzt, at least I never thought so, but Nojheim.  Drizzt is the first character to have ever caused me fan girl squeeing. The first and only character I have done fan art of. The first and only character I have ever written fanfic about. Drizzt has influenced my entire writing life. All of my characters echo that STOIC, rebel dark elf in some way, even if it is faint. From Nilda Jenkins North to Shasta Daisy and Toby and Isabelle True, they all have a littel emo dark elf in them. He made that much of an impression on me when I first cracked open Homeland. I can still remember when I read Passage to Dawn.  It was the most perfect summer day. Grass has never smelled that good and the sky has never been that perfect shade of blue. And the twilight. I read PAD all the way until the last of the light died that summer day. And no other day has ever had that kind of crystal clarity. That's why, despite how beat up my copy of PAD is, I will never, ever get rid of it. It's pages contain a summer day so gorgeous it hurts to think about. And I'm glad that I shared that summer day with Drizzt. God, I am a fan girl. And a dork of the first order. And so, I end my apologia with this. The new Drizzt novel is out in 12 days. Do you know where your magical otherworldly panther is? I do. It's in your pocket. And it wants you to bring it out. And rub it.

 

Comments

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Darn you. You know now I want to read the new book too. XD

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

XD. Of course you do. And since we will be going directly to Borders after school on the 25th, forthwith of course, it will be the perfect time for you to pick it up ::wink, wink:: ::nudge, nudge::. Besides, Clare and Ryan are reading it, too. You don't want to be left out. And this is bigger for me, bless my fan girl heart, than Harry Potter. Share the squeeing. Also, in a way, Drizzt brought all of us together, because I am relentless and obssessive, in a way, so you kinda owe it to him to read the next book...besides, the commentary will be priceless. I can read it out loud on the way to school, with annotions by O'Keefe.